Thursday Kickoff: Santos and Monterrey scoreless in CCL final opener; Lewandowski to leave Dortmund; and more

Santos Laguna and Monterrey have scored goals in bunches throughout the CONCACAF Champions League tournament, but when the two Mexican powerhouse squared off in the first leg of the final on Wednesday, neither could find the net.

Santos looked like they would have a golden opportunity to jump into the lead when Monterrey had Cesar Delgado sent off for a hard tackle on U.S. Men’s National Team forward Herculez Gomez in the 66th minute. Unfortunately for the Guerreros, they couldn’t capitalize on their 24 minutes with a man advantage.

The teams will meet again on May 1st in Monterrey, with Santos Laguna holding a reasonable edge after keeping Monterrey from scoring a road goal. Now any score draw would give Santos the CONCACAF Champions League title and the berth in the Club World Cup that goes with it.

On the same day he shook up the soccer world by dropping four goals on Real Madrid in the UEFA Champions League semifinals, Robert Lewandowski was the subject of transfer rumors linking him to a summer departure from Borussia Dortmund.

That isn’t exactly a big surprise, but the rumors circulating of Lewandowski joining Mario Goetze in a move to Bayern Munich is what really turned heads on Wednesday. The Manchester United target has just one year left on his Borussia Dortmund contract after this season and is expected to make a move, even though Dortmund officials are insistent that they don’t want him to move and don’t need to sell him.

BRAZIL BOOED AFTER TYING CHILE

The Brazilian Men’s National Team continued a rather underwhelming pre-World Cup tour of friendlies on Wednesday with a 2-2 draw against Chile that led to many of the more than 53,000 Brazilian fans at Belo Horizonte Stadium booing the home team.

The Brazil squad, a team made up of players from the Brazilian league, couldn’t please the majority of Brazil fans in attendance even though the team did score some goals and did feature the likes of Ronaldinho and Neymar.

RODGERS FURIOUS OVER LENGTH OF SUAREZ BAN

To the surprise of very few, Liverpool manager Brendan Rogers has stepped forward and expressed outrage over the length of Luis Suarez’s suspension for biting Branislav Ivanovic last Sunday.

‘We have got a punishment that is no way in helping the rehabilitation of the player, Rodgers said. “He needs help. That is what we will look to provide. The biggest thing is to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Suarez will miss the remainder of the current season, and sit out the first six matches of next season as well.

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What do you think of these developments? See Santos Laguna beating Monterrey in the second leg? Where would you like to see Lewandowski go? Think it’s crazy that Bayern Munich might add both Mario Goetze and Robert Lewandowski this summer?

29 Responses to Thursday Kickoff: Santos and Monterrey scoreless in CCL final opener; Lewandowski to leave Dortmund; and more

The timing of it it is sickeing to me. Being very likely that Dortmund and Munich will face off in the finals, it must take away some of the enjoyment of Dortmund fans who probably have mixed feelings now about Gotze and Lewandowski. Why not wait until after the season is over to confirm these moves – what’s the hurry?

Creates an interesting conflict of interest for he and Goetze in the final (assuming both Bayern and Dortmund don’t collapse). I know they can’t “transfer” until the transfer window, but this kind of defeats the purpose of the transfer window to have players committed to another team in season. Hopefully the players play for their current team and teammates without any thoughts about Bayern.

Exactly it defeates the purpose of a transfer window or an offseason when teams make these deals… This is the absolute worst example of it. Hard to root for Bayern, i hope they waste their money and fail.

In the future hopefully teams enforce the proper negotiation periods in future contracts.

why is Lewandowski so intent on going to Munich? Are they gonna double his wages? Why not go to a Juventus or AC Milan or Man United or Real Madrid or Barcelona. If he so wants to stay in Germany, why not stay at Dortmund where he is guaranteed 20 goals a season and a chance to become a club legend in a few years. Dortmund is arguably the 2nd biggest club in Germany, why leave for Munich?

Easy answer. On top of it being Bayern and the lure that is associated with Germany’s top supported club, Pep Guardiola is the incoming manager. For whatever reason, he has a mystique around home that is infectous. Players want to player for him. We will see how Pep does away from Barca but there’s no denying Bayern and Pep could be a lethal combo. Lewendowski knows that, I’m sure.

As a Blackburn supporter, I have to chuckle when recalling that less than three years ago Lewandowski was on the verge of moving to Rovers from Lech Poznan but chose Dortmund instead. Ok I’ll admit it – he probably made the right call.

How is Liverpool so inept at handling these situations? If they had quietly accepted his ban and moved on, the story would be on it’s way out of the news cycle. Instead, everyday they clamor about what a victim Suarez is, how harsh the punishment is, and keep him in the headlines. Now they just alienate anyone who isn’t a Liverpool Ultra.

I’d usually enjoy watching Liverpool go down in flames, if it wasn’t so irritating to hear them blame everyone but themselves.

Nah. Klopp is a fantastic manager and Zorc is a damn good Sporting Director. They will be fine. They are smart and calculated and will snag some young, up-and-coming yougesters. In two seasons they’ve lost some quality players like Barrios, Kagawa, and now Gotze and seemingly Lewendowski but have brought in Reus, Sahin (again), and Gundogan. You can’t necessarily “replace” Lewendowski and Gotze but you can bring in players who will adapt to Dortmund and become big-time contributors. I wouldn’t count Dortmund out.

True, but if the culture of being a selling club persists, they will just become the Arsenal of Germany. Nice to watch, good results here and there, never a threat to win a trophy. Which would be a damn shame.

I could see Brazil crashing out in the group stage this time around. They are going to be struggling to find meaningful matches to play since they don’t have to travel The Road to the World Cup. If the crowd is turning on them already, it may only get worse…

No chance they don’t get out of the group, this team that played last night had maybe 2-4 players that are going to the World Cup, don’t think its particularly indicative. I do think the pressure will get to them, but not in the group stage.